Standing ovations in Depot 1, fireworks and long summer nights of sound at the tanzfaktur and a performance with ‘Schutz-Ziege’ under the cool canopy of leaves in the Gremberg forest: we leave Cologne with these and so many other great experiences and impressions, say thank you to Schauspiel Köln, our colleagues at TanzFaktur and, last but not least, to our partners at studiobühne Köln and head off to the furious festival finale in Düsseldorf (3-6 July):

Here, the programme starts on Thursday evening, 6 pm, with our partners at the FFT with the discussion round "Art and Culture in a Multipolar World". From Thursday to Sunday, Impulse's last festival station 2025 in Düsseldorf will not only present itself as a stage for the most outstanding productions, but also as the most important platform for the independent scene, allowing intensive encounters with performance, theatre and dance, on and beyond classic stage spaces: the audio performance "Somewhere there's War" by Studio Urbanistan will travel with real interviews on war traumas to the ‘perfect world’ setting of the model house estate FertighausWelt in Wuppertal, which will be reached by shuttle from Düsseldorf.

Between conversations about underground punk, resistance narratives and community experiences, the Ost-West-AG meets the audience with interventions in Düsseldorf's urban space (including Grabbeplatz, Oberbilker Markt) - from singing with the ‘Meckerchor’ to the joint untying of the longest string of pearls in the pearl shop at the film screening (by and with Pauli Prize winner Gabriele Stötzer).

With „Songs of the Wayfarer“ ,the internationally sought-after choreographer Claire Cunningham brings a lovingly melancholic and highly musical work about our life's wanderings to the FFT stage, while in „ElseWhere Rhapsody“ by Jen Rosenblit, (queer) desire is negotiated in poetic text and stage actions. In „Bitter Fields“, les dramaturx shed light on their personal and socially alarmingly profitable links to the climate crisis, and DARUM takes us into the equally fascinating and terrifying virtual worlds of a privatised metaverse with „[EOL] End of Life" at the FFT after the performances in Mülheim (the performances are sold out). The Düsseldorf programme will be framed by symposium formats and after talks accompanying the performances.

And of course we want to celebrate with you: the Impulse 2025 issue, being together and the summer! We invite you to the closing party on Saturday, 5 July, from 10.30 pm with free entry to the reinraum, where extremely danceable sets & sounds await us from and with DJ Merkush, Endless Fun and E.P.I.Q..

Welcome to the Impulse Festival finale and Düsseldorf!

Festival finale in Düsseldorf (3.-6.7.)